“No, you don’t. You can’t. I’m—I’m sorry for what happened to you, Ruth. I really am. Maybe it was him, or maybe it was somebody else, but you can’t know how I feel.”
“I didn’t mean I knew—”
“Stop. Please.” She pressed her hands over her ears and shook her head. “I’m sorry. I’m really sorry. I just can’t do this.”
“All right.” Ruth lifted her hands.
Erin said, “I’ve gotta go.” And with that, she jumped to her feet, jangling silverware atop the table and nearly toppling Ruth’s untouched wine. Ruth grabbed for her glass just in time as Kat scrambled to her feet as well.
But Erin had moved off already, blasting through the tables, causing exclamations of surprise as she bumped diners and snagged the edge of a tablecloth.
Kat followed after her, ignoring Ruth’s, “Kat! Wait! She’ll call. Let her go.”
Kat ran after Erin onto the porch, but Erin yanked open the door to an older model Chevy sedan and threw herself inside. She started it up, and the engine coughed violently.
“Erin!” Kat called.
Without looking, Erin reversed in a U that faced her nose-out to the road. Kat memorized the license plate, as it appeared Erin was bolting. She was turning back to the door, feeling slightly defeated, when the blast of a truck’s horn shattered the air with a loud WWWOMMMMM. She looked back, and everything seemed to go into slow motion as Erin’s car leapt onto the road, directly in front of a Ford F1.
CRASH!
Shrieking metal. Erin’s car spun crazily. A scream of “OH NO” ripped from Kat’s own lips.
Then silence and steam rising from the radiator, and Kat was running to the scene, running to Erin, running . . .
Chapter 26
The next three hours passed in a blur. Patrons boiled out of the restaurant at the sound of the crash. Ruth was one of the first to reach Kat, who’d dialed 911 and learned that an ambulance was dispatched. The truck driver staggered down from his cab, more shaken than hurt. Kat wrenched open the driver’s door and checked Erin’s pulse. Found it steady, but she was unconscious. With Ruth’s help, she held people back until the EMTs arrived and Erin was pulled from the wreckage and placed on a gurney. The doors on the ambulance slammed, and they learned they were headed to the closest hospital, Prairie Creek.
“She didn’t want to go back,” Ruth whispered to Kat, stricken.
“She doesn’t have a choice,” Kat said.
“I know, but I feel responsible.”
“Yeah.”
Kat then called Sheriff Featherstone’s cell and told him what had happened. When he learned it was Erin Higgins, he said he would send extra officers to the hospital to protect her and that he would alert Bryce Higgins.
“Bryce knows his sister’s alive,” Kat said. “He’s been in communication with her from the moment she escaped her kidnapper.”
“All right, I’m on my way. Ricki’s with me,” Sam said.
“I’ll meet you there,” Kat said. Ricki and Sam had been dating for a while, and there was something about the way he’d said her name that resonated with Kat. What would it be like to have a partner you wanted to share your life with? Even though she was having his baby, she certainly couldn’t feel that way about Blair . . . could she?
The local police arrived on the heels of the EMTs and began interviewing everyone on the street, including Kat and Ruth, and it took another call to Sam to get free of the questions and be allowed to leave. Kat drove Ruth directly to the Prairie Creek Hospital, whereupon they were met by Sam, Ricki, and Ethan, whom Ruth had called on the way over. Ethan folded Ruth into his arms, and Kat found her throat tightening at the sight.
“I should have never asked her to meet us,” Ruth said for about the fifteenth time, sick with guilt.
“This isn’t your fault,” Ethan assured her, the same words Kat had uttered as they’d driven to the hospital.
And it’s not mine, either, she reminded herself. Though it sure as hell feels like it. “We gotta get this prick,” Kat said to her brother. “For Erin, for Courtney, for Rachel . . . and for Addie. It’s the same guy. I know it.”
“And for Ruth,” Ethan said.
“Oh yes.” Kat was grim.
Erin was taken to emergency surgery for abdominal injuries, but the hospital staff assured the sheriff that, barring complications, she would pull through. Then Sam and Ricki questioned Ruth and Kat in a private waiting room, while Ethan stood by. Kat brought them up to date on their meeting with Erin, and Ruth explained about how Erin, “Lily,” had called in on her hotline.
It was late by the time Erin was out of surgery. Ruth had called her mother, and her daughter, Penny, was staying the night with Ruth’s parents. She, Kat, and Ethan had gone to the cafeteria before it closed, and Kat had managed to keep down a cheese sandwich and a cup of vegetable soup. Her stomach seemed to be holding its own for the moment.
As they finished their meal, Ruth said, “I’ve always thought the rape was the worst moment of my life, but it could have been far worse. He could have taken me away too. Locked me up for years. Abused me countless times.”
“But he didn’t,” Ethan said.
“That’s right,” Kat reminded fiercely. She was filled with so much anger toward this monster. She wanted to get him. Make him pay.
“Because you and Shiloh were there to help save me. You saved me, and I’m one of the lucky ones. But what about the others. Erin and Courtney . . . Rachel and Addie? And now Erin’s fighting for her life. She never wanted to come forward. I urged her to. I pushed her.”
“Erin wanted to help too,” Kat reminded. “She made that decision. That’s why she met us today. You know that.”
“I know. It just doesn’t feel that way,” Ruth said on a sigh, and Ethan put his arm around her and drew her close.
Kat knew they would be heading home together, and it reminded her anew of her own screwed-up situation with Blair.
Don’t compare yourself to them. You’ve made a mess of things, but you’ll get it sorted out. You will.
With an officer planted outside ICU, who would then follow Erin to her hospital room once she was moved, Kat was satisfied that she would be safe. She stifled a yawn, and Ricki and Sam, and Ruth and Ethan, coupled up and left the hospital. Kat waited until they were gone and then followed after them, phoning her father, who was on another date with Goldie and seemed to be enjoying himself. Who woulda thunk?
But when she gave him the update, he said, “We need to get together and go over the case. I’m still trying to meet Bryce. I know you said Shiloh and Beau already talked to him, but now that we know he knew about Erin, I want it to be one of us who interviews him. He kept that secret a long time.”
“You want to meet tomorrow?” Kat asked.
“Tomorrow’s Sunday.”
Her father wasn’t one to attend church, but she sensed he was thinking about spending time with Goldie. And Kat felt all in. This pregnancy was taking its toll. “Let’s talk tomorrow afternoon,” she said.